The education dynamic setting up in this year’s Legislature goes like this: School superintendents and teacher groups are pressing legislators to restore school funding that was cut in the 2011 session while also pushing for a new way of measuring and testing students and their schools.

This dynamic will shape this year’s session, creating tension in two distinct ways. It will spark friction between school organizations and those, such as Gov. Rick Perry, who think schools have enough money. And it will create a rub between education groups and those, such as Bill Hammond of the Texas Association of Business, who don’t want the state to water down its accountability system.

The lines are drawn, but there is a way out of this. Here’s a way both sides can win:

School spending: Superintendents are right. Legislators can’t expect campuses to meet the state’s standards for schools without restoring some funds. Sure, they may cope for a year or two with the $5.4 billion in cuts lawmakers dished out two years ago. But they cannot absorb such a hit over time, not with a student population across Texas that is largely low-income and Latino. Children from poverty and immigrant families present educators a twin challenge.

So, yes, schools need money. Yet those lobbying for restitution shouldn’t expect legislators to simply turn on the spigot. The state must be strategic in restoring spending.

For example, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation released a study last week that shows effective teachers can turn around struggling students regardless of a child’s past performance. The Gates study also found that the greatest predictors of teachers’ effectiveness are their students’ previous test scores, classroom observations by fellow professionals and student reviews of their leadership.

This information presents legislators one way to invest strategically: Give districts money to fund a serious system of classroom observations.

Dallas’ new superintendent, Mike Miles, is rightly working on a better way to evaluate teachers in Dallas classrooms. The Gates Foundation has invested in classroom observations in various districts around the country. Why don’t legislators on Texas’ two education committees consult with Miles and Gates about how to do them right and fund the best approach?

This is the type of specificity legislators need. Simply dumping money through the formulas the state uses to largely finance schools is not the answer.

School accountability: School superintendents and teacher groups are complaining loudly about holding schools accountable through the state achievement exam. Numerous legislators are in their camp, lamenting “teaching to the test.”

But opponents better watch weakening how the state assesses and ranks campuses. A watered-down accountability system would harm schools and students.

That’s certainly the logical conclusion to draw from the annual “Quality Counts” report the respected Education Week journal released last week. In analyzing Texas’ education system, Education Week gave Texas an A- for its system of standards, assessments and accountability. It gave an A for the way the state gets students ready for college or a post-high school job.

But overall, Texas drew a C+ for its approach to education. That’s in part because of the D+ for the way we fund schools and the C+ we got for the quality of our teachers.

This data shows legislators would risk the cornerstone of our education system if they took an ax to the accountability system. And legislators would swing an ax if they, say, greatly reduce the number of exit tests high school students must take and pass to graduate.

Hammond, of the Texas Association of Business, has proposed reducing some end-of-course exams, so there is a way to compromise and save our accountability system. But taking a full swing at the end-of-course exams or moving away from an annual testing of third- through eighth-graders would be mistakes. Big ones.

Dallas Morning News columnist William McKenzie can be reached at wmckenzie@dallasnews.com. He moderates the Texas Faith blog at dallasnews.com/texasfaith and contributes to dallasnews.com’s education blog. Follow him on Twitter at @bill_mckenzie.